Backup Plan with Multiple Drive Rotation. Please help.

MrOrange,
Welcome to the forum.
Anyone responding will probably offer a different method as it really comes down to personal preferences.
If you try to do this with one backup task, TrueImage will become confused and error out when the drives are switched.

My suggestion would be to use 3 tasks named Red, White, Blue.
Name the 3 disks with volume names to match --Red, White, Blue
Assign drive letters such as x, y, z so you could have multiple attached if your were copying from one eSata to another eSata.
Backups would be run manually via the "backup now" or via 3 desktop shortcuts named either red or white or blue.

The backup task would be the same for each task except for pointing to a different eSata disk.
The backup scheme would be for the first backup to be a full and then all next to be differentials.
Each task would point to the folder name (such as set0) but to the correct drive letter.
Lets use one (Red-Drive ) as an example.
Option A: After Red disk has been used and then rotated out and then much later rotated back in, you would manually rename the (Red) set0 folder to set9 (or another name and number of your choosing), and create a new empty set0 folder (always the same original name). TrueImage would find the original set0 task folder empty and would be forced to create a new full to restart the differentials again. Each time you return a storage disk back into active use, it would be up to you to remember to rename and recreate the set0 folder in order for a new chain to begin.

Option B: Set the backup scheme to a specific number of diff and when that number is reached, a new full would be created and prior backups chain would be retained as you stipulate in the "keep x number of recent version chains". This suggestion offers no flexibility in number of backups but it does automate the process more.

The other two eSata would be handled same as the above except for having their own disk unique name and drive letter.

The above will give you food for thought.

Another option which would take longer to setup would be use the helper program "Chain2Gen"(C2G). Once setup, it would handle the renaming automatically. More info on C2G in my signature below.

Grover, thank you.

Regarding the first scheme that you proposed.

Would it work to simply assign all the drives the same letter and delete all the content on a drive after swapping it in to force acronis to start fresh? This way, I could use the "backup on shutdown feature" to make automation a little simpler. (I think.)

Thanks!

MrOrange,

What you are really wanting is one task to do it all--regardless of which disk is attached. The only way I know of making that possible is for you to change the internal serial numbers on the eSata's so the all three eSata disks has the same serial number. This is easy to do if you wish to do so.

You could use the listed program and get the serial number of one and paste that into the serial number in the other two. TrueImage would believe all 3 are one.

http://www.xboxharddrive.com/freeware.html

1. Use Windows Disk management and change the drive letter(such as X on all) and name(X-eSata) on all 3 eSata's so the drive letter and volume name is the same on all 3 disks.

2. Download the listed program and copy the serial number of one and paste same into the serial number in the other two. In this manner, all three disks would have the same identification.

3. After the first two steps, then create the backup task pointing to any one of the eSata disks. and set up your backup scheme according to your desires.

4. I am not an advocate of deleting backups. Simply said, you never know when you might need an old file. I do not delete backups until space forces me to do so. You could use the folder rename feature to change set0 to another name and then create a new set0. In order to get a new full backup, the target folder name(your choice) must not change (from what is assigned inside the backup task) and the target must be empty.

5. In the prior build of TI, there were issues about backup at shutdown. I believe those have been fixed but you will just have to test what you want to do.

If you are using Windows 7, a new TIMEOUT command was added which I suggest you add to the backup options Pre/post command in the post command (or put it in a batch files and add the batch file to the post command. This would provide a couple minutes delay before the shutdown actually occurs.

TIMEOUT /T 120 /NOBREAK
-------------------------------------
FYI:
Windows Task Scheduler option:
Should you experience issues with Acronis at shutdown, there is always the option to use the Window Task Scheduler to run a batch file to start Acronis task at shutdown. The shutdown command could also be a part of the batch file if this option becomes necessary.

Added note:
Hopefully you have already assigned names at least to your drive C so it can be easily identified--such as Win7-C.

Grover,

I'm confused as to why Acronis would have trouble with three different drives that all have the same letter assuming they are never attached at the same time. Is there something technical I'm missing here?

Thanks!

MROrange,

TureImage uses the disk serial number to correspond to a task in this way it can track archives. If an archive were to be distrubted across different drives the TrueImage database would become out of sync pretty quickly.

Personally I'd go the three task method whith each task corresponding to a specific drive, so long as the drives are always rotated in the correct order and the tasks scheduled correctly it would be the most efficient way to accomplish what you want to do.

Ah, I thought it tracked them by path.

Yeah, in that context, I think the three disk rotation is probably the best way to go, as Grover outlined above.

I guess I can just run the task manually and set it to shut off after it's done, no?

MROrange wrote:

Ah, I thought it tracked them by path.

The path is in the task as well

I guess I can just run the task manually and set it to shut off after it's done, no?

Yes you can do that.